What’s that you’re doing, Ms. Wiele?

“I’m attaching strip lights to the cabin floor of an Airbus A380, a job that involves cutting the strips to size and gluing them in place. If the power goes off, the shimmering blue strips light the way to the nearest exit. But I don’t just install these strips, I also develop them further. The idea itself is pretty basic. You’ve probably seen luminous cutouts in children’s rooms. They absorb daylight or artifical light and then glow in the dark, but usually only for a very short time. Aircraft strip lights are made to quite different standards. They have to last for years, despite being literally trodden underfoot by thousands of passengers, getting rolled over by heavy cabin trolleys and possibly even having coffee spilled on them. And they have to glow in the dark even after a 16-hour, long-haul flight – as well as blending nicely into the overall cabin design when it’s light outside. That’s why we are developing strips for ever different aircraft type.”